It was the Zeppelin. Whether by the submarine's gun-fire or by an accident it would never be known—but in any case the result was the same—the air-ship had caught fire in mid-air. For some seconds she blazed furiously—the whole of the after part of the envelope being hidden in fire and smoke—without showing any appreciable signs of falling. Then, with appalling suddenness, she buckled in two, and commenced her headlong flight to destruction.
Too far off to hear the loud hiss of the burning fabric as it came in contact with the water, R19 nevertheless turned and proceeded to the spot where the wreckage had disappeared. It was a fruitless quest. Beyond a few charred fragments of wood, there were no traces of what was, a few minutes previously, one of the vaunted mammoths of the Kaiser's air fleet.
Joyfully the Hon. Derek repaired to his cabin to draft his report for dispatch by wireless. Brevity and modesty were some of his characteristics. He was not one to take credit for the acts of others:
"I have the honour to report that the hostile air-ship L67, previously crippled by H.M. Submarine E Something, has been destroyed. During the operations U129 was rammed by R19, and also destroyed. Derek U. E. Stockdale, Lieutenant-Commander R19."
This dispatch sent off in code, the Hon. Derek "turned in", acting on the principle that it is well to sleep when one can. The most strenuous part of the outward voyage was yet to come, the passage through the mine-infested Sound at the entrance to the Baltic.
From a strictly personal point of view, R19's mission was not an enviable one. For two months—longer if the exigencies of the service so required—she was to be tacitly lent to the Russian Government. During that period the crew would be lucky if they had as much as one mail-bag from home. Ravages by hostile underwater craft, operating off the North Cape, and the uncertain state of internal communication between Archangel and Petrograd, made it a difficult matter for letters and parcels to be sent to the crews of British submarines operating in Russian waters. They would soon be short of food, too; when their own stores were exhausted they would have to rely upon what provisions the Russian authorities could spare out of their already depleted stocks. Both going and returning from her station, R19 would have to thread the narrow, dangerous waters of the Sound, and run the gauntlet of the numerous motor patrol boats which the Huns maintained almost without let or hindrance in the landlocked waters of the southern and western Baltic.
Yet with the same cheerfulness that the British bluejacket will voluntarily choose a two years' exile in the desolate Arctic, or risk the perils of the miasmic, mosquito-infested swamps of tropical Africa, did R19's officers and men set forth on their hazardous adventure. In the common cause of the Allies it mattered little whither they went, so long as they could strike a blow for king and country.
CHAPTER VIII
"Accidents will Happen"
Grey dawn was breaking when submarine R19 approached the waters of the Skager-rack. Well on their port bow could be faintly discerned the rugged cliffs of Norway, but it was yet too hazy to sight the low-lying shores of Jutland. The strong wind had blown itself out, and although the waves still ran high they had lost their angry look. It was possible to stand on deck without having to hang on like grim death, as the water surged waist-high over the comparatively low-lying structure.